Today, I was particularly excited about collecting the TODAY paper… because today’s issue has a 32 page supplement for the promotions and deals for Comex 2008, which starts today!

Heh… I just noticed that the supplement is called “Electronic Ecstasy”! No wonder I am so excited!… or maybe its just last night lack of sleep!

Here are some good deals you might wanna check out!

Asus Eee Family PCs!

The Asus Eee PC 901 – which features an Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz and 8.9″ display is going for just S$698! This is a $100 cash rebate of its regular price of S$798!

Its bigger brother – The Eee PC 1000H or Eee PC 1000 (with the 10″ screen and slightly bigger keyboard for people with fat fingers like me!) is going for S$888!… and you’ll get an 8GB thumb drive!

Sony Cybershot Digital Cameras!

If you have been “holding your wallets” for your next compact digital camera, now is the time go let go, because Sony is all ready with their pack of ace cards – targeted at Comex Bargain hunters!

If style is most important for you, get the Sony Cybershot T300! Originally priced at $599, it is going for $499 just these few exhibition days!

If you are looking for more performance, get the T70! Again, a $100 off its regular price, going only for $399! What a deal! … And you love landscapes, wide angles are the way to go, and you will love the Cybershot W170, for $499!

Samsung SyncMaster 226UX

Its been some time since I’ve really went into researching and updating myself with hardware, but this is something new! (Sorry if I’m being swakoo… erm for the benefit of overseas readers, swakoo = “mountain tortoise” = out of date!)

If “dual screen” is your lingo, then you MUST check out the Samsung SyncMaster 226UX! According to the article, this 22 inch monitor can be hooked up to your computer using a USB connection. This means that you do not need a specialized dual monitor graphics card, or one graphics card for each monitor!

… so you can upgrade from “dual screen” to “triple screen” to “quad screen” Best part? Its going for only S$560 – head on to booth 8328 if you are looking for this!

Yesterday, I was yearning for some “brainless entertainment” and I headed on to Miniclip.com, only to find an interesting game – Sushi Go Round. And for some time (okay, okay, it got me stuck for over an hour! ) I was so caught up in the game, and I played it over and over again.

I didn’t get my “brainless entertainment”. In fact, it was far from that. I was so frustrated why I could not serve my customers… and after many tries at it, I finally grasped the technique. I learned something, and something that really applies well into almost any business.

So, what can serving sushi teach you about business?

The Sushi Go Round game was a simulation of a sushi restaurant, you are the sushi chef, and customers are going to walk into your restaurant and ask for sushi!

Your job is simple. Serve your customers before they get frustrated and leave!

Over on the bottom left, you have your ingredients – rice, nori, roe, unagi, salmon, shrimps. And you need to follow the recipe from your sushi recipe book, to make the sushi requested by your customers! Once the sushi is made, they are placed on the conveyer belts and your hungry customer will pick them up to eat. After they leave you will need to collect the plates, to make way for new customers.

Sounds easy? Not so.

My first game was the worst mess. I didn’t know my recipes well, and everytime there was a request, I had to refer to my recipe book, this took time, and during this time, customers are waiting!

You need to memorize your business recipes!

What is your business recipes? If you are going to service your customers and provide them with your proprietory products, you cannot afford to refer to you product manual in front of you potential customers. Product information must be at your finger tips!

So, I took time to memorize the recipes… and things got better. As I progressed to advanced stages of the game, there were more recipes to memorize, but I found that time spent to memorize the recipes will be well worth it, because it will allow you to prepare the sushi’s right at the moment you see the order!

Then the second challenge came. The conveyer belt was slow, and many times, before the plate could reach the customers seat, there were already grinning their teeth, on the verge of leaving.

I order to overcome this, I had to prepare sushi’s and put them on the belt, even if there are no orders for it. I trusted that orders will come.

You need to know your business demand, and be able to predict it!

In the fast moving world of business, it is already too late to prepare your order when the demand comes. While the demand for a particular type of sushi is pretty random in the game, real life demands follow patterns, they follow trends… and if you want to be able to capitalize on the trend you need to prepare in advance.

Granted, your predictions may not be 100% correct and you might end up wasting some effort… but in the long run, being prepared for the spike in business can bring you enough business to cover the cases in incorrect predictions.

Third issue. Again in the advanced stages of the game – I was required to prepare more complicated kinds of sushi – receipes that required all kinds of ingredients, which took longer time to prepare. Many times, I had to choose between serving the simple “califonia roll”, versus the ultimate “combo” sushi.

But I realised that the simple sushi will get me only Â¥60 – Â¥80 each, and the tougher ones will make me sometimes up to Â¥640 each! This means, that if I let my “combo” sushi customer get frustrated and leave, I’ll have lost an opportunity to make Â¥640, and I’d have to serve up 6 to 8 of the “califonia rolls” to make up for that!

If you can’t serve all your customers, choose the ones that will give you the most profit!

It sounds simple and logical enough, but how many actually practise it? Out of “simplicity” and the perception of “quick and easy money”, many of us want to get done with our “califonia roll” clients work before we start work on the “combo” customers. As a result, we end up running late serving our most important customers.

Who are your most important customers? If you serve this small group of customers well, will it pay off eventually?

Its amazing what a sushi game can teach you, isn’t it?

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Tan Kian Ann is blog marketer based in Singapore. He now works with individuals and small businesses to reach out to the world with the use of blogs. More about Kian Ann »